


Dum Spiro Spero (While I Breathe, I Hope)

by sevensyllables



Series: It Wouldn't Be Make Believe If You Believed In Me [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Fallout Kink Meme, Frottage, Honest Hearts, M/M, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:17:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4942900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevensyllables/pseuds/sevensyllables
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Courier returns to the Mojave from Zion and ends up in Vault 22 with Arcade, sex pollen and feelings ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dum Spiro Spero (While I Breathe, I Hope)

As Arcade leaned heavily against the overgrown desk at the center of the Overseer’s office in Vault 22 and thought back on the past 72 hours, he decided that the worst of the decisions made during that period was his blithely agreeing to leave the Lucky 38 and accompany the Courier to Camp McCarran in the first place. Although ignoring the bright red sign that said “STAY OUT! The plants kill!” just two hours ago certainly vied for a spot near the top.  
  
The three days following the Courier’s return from an evidently unsuccessful caravan excursion through Zion to New Canaan had thus far been filled with a motley assortment of downright unpleasant tasks. ‘Simple work for the NCR, helping out the common people of the Wastes,’ the Courier had said in a singsong voice, overselling his own enthusiasm in an attempt to charm Arcade. Damn if it hadn’t worked, somewhat, but Arcade had been exceedingly bored turning over the same tired Followers medical research while the Courier was in Utah. ‘It’ll be in and out, honest caps earned, good deeds done. Besides, you could use a little sunshine, Doc.’ Hardly.  
  
Tracking down the three worst of dozens of chem-addled Fiends and returning to McCarran with their undamaged—and most importantly, unattached—heads? Horrifying, barbaric, and those were just descriptors for the Courier’s actions. Offering to assist in the interrogation of one of Caesar’s most unaccommodating Frumentarii? Not Arcade’s idea of a relaxing afternoon. Convincing a traumatized soldier to seek psychiatric help to heal the mental wounds inflicted upon her in the line of her increasingly thankless service? Devastating. Uncovering the plans of a Legion double agent within NCR ranks, spending the chilly Mojave night atop the roof of the base staking out the comm tower and eavesdropping on the bastard, then racing against time to prevent a bomb from blowing up the monorail thereby killing many (relatively) innocent NCR soldiers and disrupting the supply chain, sowing further chaos in the heart of an already too unstable Nevada wasteland? Simply exhausting. Seeing the Courier and Colonel James Hsu exchange genuinely affectionate smiles while debriefing the aforementioned events? Not in the least to be counted among or compared to the brutalities that Arcade had encountered alongside the Courier, but incredibly demoralizing on a personal level nonetheless.  
  
So when Dr. Hildern proposed that the Courier venture into Vault 22 to retrieve data on a Vault-Tec experiment dedicated to the pursuit of a sustainable food source that might be mass-produced and used to support the Wasteland at large—not just those who happened to fall under NCR control or the privileged who live on the Strip—Arcade naturally felt that this job might prove less futile than the other assignments that he and the Courier had undertaken since walking through the well-fortified gates of Camp McCarran just a few short days ago.  
  
_Dum spiro spero_ , Arcade supposed idly, scrubbing a sweaty hand over his flushed face; he couldn’t be right all the time. Since they’d entered the Vault they’d encountered no fewer than two dozen mutated Vault dwellers, monstrosities that moved startlingly quickly for creatures that were plant-based. The usefulness of any project data they might find at this point was highly suspect.  
  
Arcade sighed loudly for the Courier’s benefit, although the full dramatic effect of his irritation was lost somewhat in the growing tightness of his chest. He tried to turn his thoughts to cataloguing his ever-growing list of symptoms as he glared at the Courier’s back. The Courier remained bent over a computer terminal, oblivious to both Arcade’s obvious disdain for the disaster they had wandered into and the surely distracting way in which the tattered Wasteland shirt he wore was currently clinging obscenely to the muscles in his back. Arcade’s throat clicked at the sight, dry.  
  
He jerked his head away from the sight to stare at his battered wristwatch, pressing his fingers to his throat. His heartrate had become elevated approximately twenty minutes after they had entered the Vault, well before the first of the spore carriers had taken them by surprise in the Vault’s overgrowth. His pulse had not dropped under 130 beats per minute since then, even after they had taken shelter in the Overseer’s office, doors shut tight behind them. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed before rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses. His heartrate was 148 now, far too high for any healthy man having been stationary for upwards of ten minutes.  
  
Shortness of breath, chest pain—panic response brought on by the monsters could not be ruled out, although it was unlikely to be the root cause given the presence of other symptoms. Excessive perspiration, radiating heat—definite fever, likely three degrees. A slight ringing in the ears, headache—likely elevated blood pressure, not that Arcade had the ability to check that with his present lack of equipment. He clenched his hands, winced when the press of his fingers came away slightly pitted—upper extremity edema, though not yet severe. Such an array of symptoms could add up to a multitude of conditions, but it was hardly likely that Arcade and the Courier would both be experiencing the likes of sudden onset pulmonary edema or congestive heart failure, let alone at the same time, without ever having exhibited symptoms previously. No, the sickness they were feeling now was absolutely due to an environmental stimulus, namely the spores they had been ingesting for the past hour and a half. And given that the only other ‘living’ creatures in the place were former Vault dwellers mutated beyond recognition…Prognosis: poor.  
  
There was also the nagging fact that he has been half hard since they cleared the third room on their sweep of the ground level of the Vault. Arcade shifted, rearranging himself discreetly where he sat; but he needn’t have worried, the Courier was still absorbed in the scrolling green text before him. But given the extenuating circumstances—i.e. killer plants, the potentially fatal doses of spores they had already been exposed to, the figure the Courier cut when he was sweat-soaked and frustrated—that particularly inconvenient anatomical reaction rated rather low on Arcade’s current list of priorities.  
  
Nevertheless, Arcade’s eyes flicked back unbidden to the Courier at the terminal and he felt his throat tighten again, but his distraction could hardly be _solely_ attributed to the failed Vault experiment they had stumbled into. Since the first day he had ambled into the Mormon Fort in Freeside with a nod and a knowing smirk, the very sight of the Courier had caused Arcade to feel like the most parched man in the entire Mojave, no matter how close he may keep his canteen. The feeling had only gotten worse since the Courier had returned from Zion, sunburnt and quieter than before he had left. But, just as before the Courier’s departure northward there had never seemed an appropriate time to explore his interest in the Courier between pursuing the Legion, fending off gang attacks, and traipsing across the Wasteland for Mr. House, there had hardly been a proper time for this sort of thing immediately after his return. Hell, there had hardly been a proper time for them to sleep or eat in between all their running around Camp McCarran, let alone to consider declarations of potentially unrequited affections.  
  
However, longstanding attraction and present distraction aside, the prevailing emotion of the day was definitely unmitigated disapproval, which, quite frankly, Arcade felt wholly entitled to seeing as he had a particularly gruesome, and likely painful, arboreal transformation and death ahead of him.  
  
“Wow, I sure am glad I survived all those run-ins with the Fiends and nearly being blown up at the monorail station just to turn into a potted plant in this Vault-Tec approved death trap, all on the behalf of our dear friends in the NCR.”  
  
The Courier didn’t turn around, but somehow Arcade knew he was rolling his eyes. “We’re not dying down here, Doc.”  
  
“Really,” Arcade drawled, crossing his arms. “Something tells me you know the answer to this question, but remind me again which of us has had extensive medical training?”  
  
The Courier’s fingers clacked across the old keyboard, still not turning around; Arcade felt himself flush hotter, whether due to his irritation being further aroused or from aroused irritation he couldn’t be sure, but that was splitting hairs. “The spore doesn’t kill quickly. A hacking cough is the sign of the end, or near to it. Damn,” the Courier murmured, flipping through screens of green text. “I would’a thought the Overseer would have more information on the project than this. I guess we’re going to need to go deeper into this hellhole after all.”  
  
Arcade watched the Courier knead one hand into the sweat-shined muscles at the back of his neck distractedly before the twinge of his pride in his medical knowledge—and his foul mood—got the better of him. He walked up behind the Courier and leaned over his shoulder, scowling at the inventory screen that currently appeared on the terminal. “Oh, and you learned the stages of this infection from what exactly? The number of Nuka-Colas the Vault had in February 2090?”  
  
“No,” the Courier said just as shortly, glaring at Arcade. His irritated reply was cut off, however, when he took in just how close Arcade had drawn. They held eye contact for a few prolonged seconds before the Courier turned back to the terminal screen, dragging his tongue quickly across his lips—a newfound nervous tic for someone who had previously marched into the heart of Caesar’s encampment without blinking an eye.  
  
The Courier tapped away at the keyboard again, returning to the root menu. “I didn’t read it here. I learned it from the Father in the Caves.”  
  
Arcade cocked his head, concern overtaking exasperation as he wondered for the first time if the Courier had breathed in more of the spores than he had when they’d tangled with the monsters outside the door. “Are you having delusions? How many people do you see in this room with us?” Arcade pressed the back of his hand to the Courier’s forehead—sweaty and hot, just like his own, but it didn’t feel fatally debilitating, yet, at least.  
  
“Quit it, Doc,” the Courier swatted Arcade’s hand away. “He was a man called Randall Clark. Lived in Zion right after the Great War. That was his gun,” he gestured at the battered service rifle leaning against the desk, all the while staring blankly at the terminal screen, not reading. Arcade hadn’t noticed the Courier use any other weapon since he’d returned from Zion, but he hadn’t thought anything of it. The Courier liked his guns. “And I have other things of his besides.”  
  
The Courier ran both his hands over his face, up and down, head bowed slightly, before he continued. “He watched a group ‘a Vault dwellers wearing jumpsuits that read 22 come into the Valley—I dunno, 2095, 2096, can’t remember now, he had a lot of journals—and they killed and ate a whole other group of refugees who’d moved in a year or two before. Clark killed as many of ‘em as he could, but there were still plenty ‘a these spore carriers and the big plants in Zion when I got there.”  
  
The Courier turned and looked at Arcade, eyes vacant, but not, he suspected, from the fever. He ran a rough hand over his stubbled jaw. “Takes a fortnight to get from right here to Zion—and that’s if you know where you’re going—and they lasted weeks, maybe months in the Valley beyond that. They were sick, the hacking cough, but it wasn’t _this_ that killed ‘em,” he said, waving his hand at the room around them. He cleared his throat, glancing down at the floor before looking Arcade back in the eye. “That’s why I wanted to come here soon as Hildern mentioned Vault 22. Maybe it’s stupid since it’s not like I met the guy, but I kinda felt I owed him somehow, to find out ‘xactly what happened here at the least, you know. Even if we can’t salvage any of this research for any good.”  
  
Arcade swallowed again, his throat drier than ever, feeling every centimeter of the six inches that separated him from the Courier. “Well, that’s not what I would call a totally rational train of thought, but I wouldn’t call it stupid either. Clearly whatever happened to you in Zion affected you very deeply.” He squeezed his eyes shut again and rubbed at the perspiration his forehead, then at the muscle between his neck and shoulder, only feeling slightly bitter that the Courier hadn’t seen fit to share his tales from Zion Valley with him until he had no other choice, and an abridged version at that. The more reasonable portions of his mind wanted to remind him that he and the Courier had left the Strip almost as soon as the Courier had gotten back from Utah and there hadn’t been time to sit around and discuss _anything_ ; while Arcade hadn’t been privy to the full story yet, he’s already gotten more than say Cass or Boone. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the Courier was tracking his hand’s every move against his shoulder.  
  
The Courier cleared his throat. “Not telling you what to expect in here was pretty stupid, though. I get that and I’m sorry. But I didn’t feel anything like this in the Valley, neither did my friend Follows-Chalk, no matter how close we got to the leafy bastards. And I didn’t think—well, getting back to the 38, all I could think was—” The Courier smiled weakly, “I just wanted to not think any about Zion for a while and set off with you, Doc. Look how that turned out.”  
  
Arcade felt himself flush and reached a hand out to the Courier’s face again, although this time not to check his temperature. Arcade ran his fingers up that stubbled jaw; the Courier did not move an inch. “Hardly the first time you’ve lead me directly into a precarious situation. Unlikely to be the last time I follow you willingly, either.”  
  
Arcade dropped his hand and for a moment neither of them said or did anything, maintaining eye contact. Arcade could see that the Courier’s breathing was just as labored as his own.  
  
The Courier shifted his feet but did not stand from his seat in front of the terminal. “I’ve got a question, Doc.”  
  
Arcade briefly considered and discarded several flippant answers; it had grown too hot in this small room for petty wordplay in the name of witticism. He settled on: “Yes?”  
  
The Courier ran the palms of his hands up and down the taut denim on his thighs and looked up at Arcade. “Do you really wanna fuck me right now?”  
  
Arcade choked on a laugh but his blood sang; his skin felt like it was burning. He was fully hard now—had been for what seemed like years—and all he could manage was to repeat himself—“ _Yes_ ”—before they were pressed together, pulses racing.  
  
Arcade ran both hands over the Courier’s close-cropped hair, enjoying how the soft bristly feeling contrasted with the man’s weathered, chapped lips. For his part, the Courier was gasping into Arcade’s mouth, fingers clenched in the lapels of his worn Followers’ lab coat, straining so hard against his jeans that it seemed like it must hurt. Feeling suddenly magnanimous, Arcade popped the buttons on the Courier’s fly, still kissing him as if their lives depended on it. The Courier groaned like he’d been punched in the ribs by a power glove; Arcade couldn’t help but break the kiss then, pressing his forehead against the Courier’s, huffing a small laugh against his lips. “How long have you been hard?” he asked, vaguely appalled at both how his medical concerns got the better of him in even such a delicate situation, and how what was an honest medical query had come out sounding like the most pathetic attempt at dirty talk the Mojave had ever seen outside the walls of the Atomic Wrangler.  
  
The Courier either didn’t notice or didn’t care, simply buried his face further in the crook of Arcade’s neck and sucked at the fevered skin there, biting once, gently, when Arcade’s fingers lightly circled his cock. He groaned again, hands bracketing Arcade’s ribcage as the office chair beneath them squeaked dangerously, and answered, “Since we got down to the second fuckin’ level—” He paused to kiss his way back up the hinge of Arcade’s jaw then pulled back to meet Arcade’s eyes with a look of betrayal. “Why is it, Doc, anytime you see a broken bit of Old World science equipment you feel the need to bend all the way over to look at it?”  
  
Arcade laughed and pulled the Courier up out of the protesting chair, backing him up deliberately with hands on hips to the desk at the center of the room. “Well,” he said, picking open the buttons on the Courier’s shirt, sliding his hands along the smooth abdominal muscles slowly revealed. “I can’t say I was exactly bending over to examine them with you in mind; that’s what we like to call an unexpected benefit. As to why I feel that compulsion in the first place: _mortui vivos docent_.”  
  
The Courier paused in where he had nearly finished tugging Arcade’s lab coat off with one hand and his shirt open with the other to raise his eyebrows quizzically.  
  
“Uh, ‘the dead teach the living,’” Arcade said slowly, mentally kicking himself for his constant need to be the smartest person in the room when the Courier drew back from the newly freed skin of Arcade’s torso to scrub roughly at his own face.  
  
Arcade stood and took a half step back from where the Courier leaned against the overgrown desk, feeling exposed and foolish with his coat and shirt lying on the floor and his pants hanging off him. The Courier looked haunted and miserable in that moment; at least Arcade had shocked him to his senses before they’d done anything too compromising. He readjusted his glasses and cleared his throat, glancing toward an empty corner of the room. “Well, I—I think we can be reasonably certain that this,” he gestured between the two of them, “is an effect of the spore. Social transmission and all that. Manufacturing the need in the host to, ah, _engage_ , with other potential host bodies; an elegant mechanism, if not a particularly sophisticated result.”  
  
Arcade pushed his glasses further up his nose again, and made to pick up his shirt from where it had landed with the Courier’s in a heap on the floor.  
  
The Courier made an irritated noise in his throat and stood. “That’s not—Doc, I wasn’t trying to—You ‘n me are both infected already,” the Courier finished, slowly crossing his arms over his bare chest, jeans barely readjusted to cover himself.  
  
“Right,” Arcade said carefully, still holding his rumpled shirt in both hands.  
  
“So the spore isn’t doing any more spreading between us.”  
  
For once in his life, Arcade couldn’t come up with anything to say, and he just stood there, heart threatening to beat out of his chest.  
  
“While I wasn’t digging ‘round through plants like this back in Zion, me ‘n Follows-Chalk, and Waking Cloud for that matter, got pretty well covered in the stuff there too. Never wanted either of _them_ to bend me over.”  
  
Arcade dropped his shirt back to its place on the grimy floor.  
  
The Courier continued, “Did the spore make me want to know you the first time I met you in Freeside? Or press you up against the windows and kiss you stupid any number ‘a times in the Lucky 38? How ‘bout just last night when we were huddled behind that old plane on the roof of McCarran and it was all I could do not to just lay you against the tail of that thing and suck you—”  
  
For a moment all Arcade could hear was his own too-rapid heartbeat as he met the Courier’s mouth in a rush. Hands flew everywhere, clutching at arms, hair, pushing down pants—and underwear, for Arcade’s part. They kicked off their shoes hurriedly, the one sock hanging off the Courier’s right foot an afterthought.  
  
In between fevered kisses the Courier panted against Arcade’s skin, “I just need a little patience sometimes, Doc. There never seems to be a good time.”  
  
“Of course,” Arcade gasped back, “but for the record I think right now is a great time.” He dropped his forehead to the Courier’s shoulder as the other man grasped his length with one large hand, shifting his weight further onto the desk.  
  
The Courier leaned back a little further and then pulled up suddenly, breaking their kiss with a disgusted look and a surprised grunt. He presented his arm to Arcade—he was streaked with rotting plant matter and bronze-colored dirt from elbow to palm. “‘Right now is a great time’?” he repeated.  
  
“Given everywhere else we’ve been in the Mojave I’m hardly worried about contracting tetanus _now_ ,” Arcade smirked at him and began kissing a trail down his chest. The Courier’s arm dropped back to where it had been bracing them on the desk. “Besides, I’ve seen you eat too many cans of Old World food to believe you’re squeamish,” Arcade said, mouthing at the Courier’s hip.  
  
“Those are sealed—” the Courier’s complaint died in a groan as Arcade wrapped his lips around the head of his cock. He bobbed up and down on the length for a few moments before pulling off to lick a stripe from the base to the tip, watching the Courier’s head drop back as he moaned. Arcade’s skin felt like it was on fire when he cupped his own length with one hand. He got lost in the sensations for several long moments, sucking and licking, stroking himself, spurred on by the sound of the Courier’s taxed breathing and occasional groans and the constant drumming of his own too-fast pulse in his ears.  
  
After a particularly loud groan, the Courier’s hands dropped from where they had been carding through Arcade’s hair to tug at his shoulders, succeeding in getting him to pull off and look up at the Courier’s desperate, sweating face. Arcade pushed himself up onto his elbows and crawled up the Courier’s body to kiss him, their bodies connecting at all points. The Courier ran his hands down Arcade’s back, stopping only to squeeze at his ass before flipping them over and pressing Arcade down, hands between Arcade’s hips and the desk, his face buried in the hollow of Arcade’s neck. Arcade wrapped his legs around the Courier’s back and grimaced when he felt the same goopy plant matter the Courier was covered in squelch against his shoulders. He had only been kidding before, he really would rather not contract tetanus, but all thoughts of death and disease were pushed from his mind when his cock slotted against the Courier’s just right. He groaned and dropped one hand from where it had clutched at the Courier’s back—leaving red marks to be sure—to wrap around both of their lengths as the Courier could do little more than cling to Arcade and rock his hips against him. They moved like that together, alternately trading breathy kisses and just leaning into each other tightly, mouths agape and panting, hips and hand working in concert.  
  
Soon, the pressure, the heat, the feel of his and the Courier’s sweat between them became too much, and Arcade spared one brief moment of concern that his heart might give out from the exertion before he came hard, groaning into the Courier’s mouth, striping both their stomachs. The Courier kept rocking against him and seconds later, also came with a choked-off groan. Once Arcade’s pulls at his length became too much, oversensitive, the Courier went lax against him, resting a bit more of his frame on top of him than Arcade would strictly prefer, but in that moment he didn’t have it in himself to complain. His heart was still beating, as was the Courier’s, and today was not the day they would die. Probably. They still had two more floors of the Vault to search, and there was always the chance that the plant monsters they’d encountered so far had more and more powerful relatives awaiting them below. But, that was a problem that could wait until the afterglow had faded.  
  
Arcade ran a hand through the Courier’s hair—the other man groaned but said nothing, turning to nose against Arcade’s neck. When it appeared as if that interaction would be all the Courier was capable of for a few more minutes, Arcade reached around him—a bit awkwardly given that the Courier was lying on Arcade’s shoulder—and pressed two fingers against his neck. He held his left wrist above both their bodies so he could see his watch, glad he hadn’t managed to fling it or his glasses across the room anytime in the last twenty minutes.  
  
119\. Not bad, considering the degree of aerobic exercise he was just coming down from; certainly a much lower heartrate than he had registered in the last two hours. Content that he wasn’t likely to start tach-ing around the place without the interference of any other unforeseen chemical agents, he began to _gently_ nudge the Courier into motion. The Courier protested the heel to his kidneys with a huff of breath against Arcade’s neck and a prolonged squeeze at his side.  
  
“Alright, alright,” he grumbled as he levered himself up from the desk. “Nearly kill me then you kick me outta bed, I get it.”  
  
“Not a bed, that’s the problem,” Arcade groused, sitting up and brushing leaves and dirt and heavens knows what else off the back of his arm with a look of disgust.  
  
The Courier stopped in the middle of tugging on his shirt, his pants pulled on but not buttoned, to smirk at Arcade—for all that he had complained about the mess earlier he hadn’t bothered to even pretend to wipe the goop off himself before getting dressed. “So you’re sayin’ you’d have let me lie there if we were back home?”  
  
Arcade felt a swoop in his stomach at the word ‘home,’ but opted for ignoring the Courier and ducking his head to hide his grin while pulling on his own pants, also dirt-streaked, ugh, and locating his socks.  
  
The Courier wasn’t fooled though, and smiled more broadly as he fastened his shirt carelessly, half of the buttons in the wrong holes, before striding over to the terminal desk to retrieve Randall Clark’s old rifle.  
  
Arcade watched the Courier for a moment as he gently checked the weapon over, reloading the magazine with steady hands. He finished tying his shoes and stood, the Courier still focused on the gun in his hands with a slightly more distant smile than the one he had had just a moment before. Arcade cleared his throat, fixing the cuffs on his lab coat. “Well,” he said, and the Courier looked up at him curiously. “When we’re home, you’re certainly welcome to try.”  
  
The Courier’s face split into a brilliant grin once more and he stepped toward Arcade with intent—  
  
And the previously thought derelict ham radio in the corner crackled to life. “This is Keely from Camp— _crackle_ —rran. It’s been— _crackle_ —days since I entered— _crackle crackle_ —on the lowest level— _crackle_ —” The transmission devolved into static just as suddenly as it had broken through the humid air.  
  
Arcade turned back to the Courier and holstered his energy pistol. “I suppose that would be Dr. Williams’ missing researcher.”  
  
The Courier hefted his messenger bag and did one more sweep of the room, a small smile still playing on his lips. “Seems like.” He strode purposefully toward the door they had sealed behind them what seemed like ages ago and opened it with a flourish. “Coming, Doc?”  
  
Arcade followed him with a wry grin. “Of course. Who knows what sort of new biochemical tragedy would befall you without your personal Wasteland medic on hand?”  
  
“You know,” the Courier said as he checked his sightlines in the silent corridor. “I’m actually feeling in tiptop shape right ‘bout now.”  
  
Arcade chuckled and stepped past the Courier to give him a blatant once-over; they were both still filthy, feverish, and altogether overexerted due to the spores, but they would survive. “In my medical opinion, you still require a full checkup when we get back.”  
  
The grin the Courier gave him as he rested his rifle against his shoulder was truly filthy. “Sure thing. Can’t be ignoring my doctor’s orders, now can I?”  
  
With that and a wink, the Courier stalked down the hallway to finish their mission. Maybe the last three days hadn’t been precisely what Arcade had in mind for the Courier’s triumphant return from Zion, but as he followed closely after the Courier, they certainly could have been worse.

**Author's Note:**

> I just did a playthrough where I completed Honest Hearts before Vault 22. I knew what had happened to the former inhabitants but that Courier certainly didn't.
> 
> Written for this prompt on the Fallout Kink Meme: http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/6099.html?thread=15366355#t15366355


End file.
